


A Hero, of a Different Kind

by Big_Geek



Category: DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Everything should come together by the last chapter, Gen, Harvard University, Jason really fucking hates his apartment, Protective Dick Grayson, Surgeon Jason Todd, Tim and Damian get dragged into it, even if he doesn't act like it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 22:52:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17252915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Big_Geek/pseuds/Big_Geek
Summary: He's hidden from all things Bat and Assassin, for years may he add. Built a life he can accept, with friends and the sense of normalcy. The demons of clowns and crowbars don't come out at night as much any more. He didn't have a family and he was fine with that. Because he is Jason "Motherfucking" Todd.But, that fucking apartment is what destroyed everything.





	A Hero, of a Different Kind

**Author's Note:**

> Ok. I know. I'm sorry. What I was writing before didn't make any sense, and I want to do this right. I have a vague plan coming together and I've added more information on this and that. I like what I'm doing here as well. Instead of changing the POV among characters, I'm going to try my best to stick it to Jason. Maybe change it once or twice, but that's it. This whole fic is about Jason and the uncovering story on how escaped from the League of Assassins, why he didn't come back to Gotham and what persuaded him to apply for medical school. 
> 
> So I do hope you enjoy this one better than my previous fic. 
> 
> more chapter will be on the way, hopefully in the next few days.

Usually, as a child, he dreamt as his future as a wreck. Thievery. Assault. Gangs and Mob bosses.  He would have been fantastic at it. Who wouldn’t be when they started their career at the ripe ol’ age of eleven. Pickpocketing. Hiding. Scavenging. Just a step away from the good old Gotham employment. To be honest, he never expected to live to the age of sixteen. Too many unknowns. Too many possibilities of where he could be headed with his life. Death at sixteen may be a godsend in his dark, cursed life.

Here. Now. Living his mid-twenties. He dreads death (for more than the typical reason). He, Jason Todd, has a life to live. Drinking. Learning. Friends. Saving Lives. Beholding skills the average person doesn’t have, able to kill a life and to save it. Out of the few lives he’s taken by his intent, he’s saved hundreds more. That is what he can live by.

On the streets, he never thought he would get this opportunity.  Once maybe, twice? But, he did this by himself. No CEO of a billion-dollar company assisted him in this pathway. No Demons of the assassin world. No chance in the city he was born in (because they were generally dicks, and didn’t give these opportunities to those who may be necessitous, but deserved it either way). With an alias and no immediate connection to his old life. He was free from an unbelievably toxic world. And he is never being pulled into it again. No matter the cost.

However, memories of his previous life continue to bubble to the surface, have been doing so since he escaped. Sure, there have been nights where he couldn’t sleep because of the evocation of the blast that engulfed his battered body into a fatal hug, every strike of that metal bar, every antagonizing word that left those lips were in his dreams. A face of a bastard in too pale foundation, horribly done lipstick and fugly hair. Filling every empty crevice of his mind. Leaving him sleep deprived and dead inside. Filling his being with despair.

But, he pulled through, he always did **.** At school, under the alias of Louise Burke, he began seeing the school’s counsellor. A little reluctant at first, a Gotham boy seeking professional help in relation to their health was almost unheard of. Stigmatized as weak and feeble. Even after a few sessions, he had never felt better since he pulled himself out of the grave. Candice’s – the school’s counsellor – megawatt smile as he broke the news of receiving a Harvard Scholarship was still bright in his mind, she even cried.

Even now, he still tries to catch up with her.

Medical School was a place that he thrived in. Many of the bare acquaintances he made during the last year of school were lost, but he made actual friends. Still many of them working at the same hospital he is, in many different fields of expertise. He has never felt so whole in his life. Living like a real teenager, like he didn’t live on the streets, become a vigilante and died at the hands of a madman.

Out of the six years of Med School, he became the golden boy in the eyes of his professors. Just about always at the top of his class. Despite living in his car for most of his school years, he always manages to overcome anything. Never having a break, taking courses over the summer. That’s what, in his professor’s eyes, told him he will be a great doctor, “for every two steps back you take, you make six steps forward, and for that, you will become one of the best surgeons in the country”.

Before he knew it, at twenty-three, he graduated Harvard Medical School, with an MCAT score of 521/528 and a Summa cum laude; the highest honours. Walking on stage, shaking his beloved professor’s hands, receiving his diploma and repeating the Hippocratic Oath. The best day of his life yet. 

For a few weeks, it was good. Praised by friends and acquaintances, clubbing, catching up. Then one of his professors found a hospital for him. Gotham General Hospital. Hell, he would take RABE Memorial Hospital in Bludhaven over this. But, did he have a choice? No. “You have to put your foot through the door, Louise, a resume isn’t enough, you need to prove to them that you are, in fact, an amazing doctor”

So, this is where in his life he is at now. Selling his beloved, vulgar family van for a crappy, ruinous apartment building most likely filled with drug addicts and criminals, but this was Gotham. The apartment blocks name almost faded out of existence from the glowing sign that never turned on; Oakley Apartments.

Carrying the last cardboard box filled to the brim with textbooks, the yellow box faded and dented, “MED YR #3” scribbled on the side”. His arms trembled with the weight of several densely-compacted textbooks, each with titles that the public would not recognise as other than alien. It gave him an unhappy reminder of how much he had neglected his fitness. Travelling upwards in an elevator as ancient as time, it’s teetering bringing him a sense unease.

On the seventh floor, it’s hallways walls carried the stench of tobacco and ammonia, like it was permanently fused into the drywall. The carpet was stained and littered, it’s original colour impossible to detect. Overhead lights in varying states of dimming, and flickering. He felt a twang of memories bubbling to the surface. Home sweet home.

Halting at the thick, wooden door that barred the rusting number 7 and 3, he fished the keys from his jeans pocket and applying most of the textbooks weight on his hip, the key jammed into the hundred-year-old lock with slight resistance. With a creak the door opened, revealing a neater space than the corridor. Dumping the textbooks among several others alike on the crummy table beside the door on his right, he walked into the derelict space.

In Jason’s opinion, it was decent. An open living room, with standard sized windows that overlooked some of the city. A kitchen he didn’t skimp on with counters to sit at, and doors to the bathroom and bedroom on his left. For such a crappy, cheap residence, this was liveable.

It was growing dark, whatever sunlight that reached over the higher neighbouring buildings started to lose the battle with the lighting the apartment through the smudged windows. The bland coloured curtains sagged with the invisible weight of age. The sounds of traffic were heard in the near distance, and the sound of the tap dripping from the bathroom behind the door was consistent. He knew behind the cardboard boxes, it concealed the sight of growing mould in the living area.

Walking towards the pale, old ass fridge in the kitchen, he took out his last beer. Using the only knife in the kitchen, he flicked off the cap and relishing in the burn of the cider – non-alcoholic cider, he’s a doctor, he needs to set an example. Though, the knife was worrying. It looked borderline chef’s knife. One the residence already provided. Leaning against the concrete counter, he watched as a Bat symbol was high in the sky, partially hidden behind other apartment blocks.  Gold peaked from behind the other apartment buildings. _Early night_ , _something must be going on?_

Shaking his head of the thought, he moved to pick up the closest stray book on his mount of cardboard. Ophthalmology, flipping to a bookmarked chapter; page 245 – Strabismus.

* * *

 

**Dr Louise Burke, M.D**

**Intern Surgeon**

**Gotham General Hospital**

**#8437334773**

 

The name tag bobbed against his chest, his profile image smiling at everyone that passed him. Youthful, intelligent and eager. The Gotham General’s logo on the right, above his credentials. It’s metal clip prepared for him to clasp onto his scrubs that would most likely already be in his locker ready to be worn for the first time.

The bubbling within his stomach surprised him. No matter how much training he had received from Batman himself, he felt nervous. It was his first day. As an actual doctor. A surgeon. Jason felt too many emotions thrown into the mix. Ecstatic. Nervous. Elated. Anxiety.  All coming together and not combining. Ready for him to throw it all up in the first biohazard bin he sees.

Instead, he wrung the cheap nylon handles of his messenger bag. A bag that held all necessary textbooks and notes ready for his next assignment this hospital will provide, probably today, all ready to be chucked into his locker. The ebony leather jacket and ripped denim jeans he wore appeared on the borderline of hobo apparel.

He nodded to anyone that looked his way. The hallways were busy. A sea of blue scrubs, gloves and ivory lab coats. Every being busy with their own jobs. The one thing from questioning his appearance in these strict staff-only corridors is the lanyard the bobbed against his grey t-shirt.

He felt intimidated. Not the usual intimidation on how big and strong they looked, but how intelligent they were. Years upon years of experience working in a hospital located in Gotham. Where bullet wounds were their number one cause of injured, next to broken bones, concussions and gashed made by the Bats. Despite the harsh environment, Gotham held the best Trauma Centre in the state. One of the reasons his professors egged him to send his application through to this hospitals administrator.

Soon enough, he spotted the door that barred the words: Locker Room. As plain as any door, he passed but this one seemed bigger. The literal and metaphorical doorway to a new chapter in his life. Opening the door, he was flooded with the chatter of other graduated students of the nation. Between the rows of grey, lockers revealed his to be new colleagues in varying stages of undress. Removing typical clothing in much-desired scrubs. As he watched their hands feel the material, he’s safe to assume just that.

Shuffling through the flood of people, saying sorry when he accidentally pushed a woman a little too hard. Excitement and anxiety bubbled in the air, infectious to anyone in the room. Stuffing his duffel bag at the bottom of his locker that bared the numbers 733, he let his eyes catch onto the brand-new scrubs hanging on the rack, pager and stethoscope. The last two still in their plastic covering. 

As quickly as possible he changed his shirt. He didn’t need everyone to know of the many scars that adorned his body on the first day. When he heard, the excited chatter continue he let out a sigh of relief before moving onto his pants and the plain white shoes that laid unobtrusively beside ivory socks under the lab coat that hung on the rack.

From behind the shelter of the lockers, the locker door burst open. The slam against the wall effectively quieted everyone. Having him pause in tying his shoes for a moment. The owner was female and truly Gotham, from the undertone of an accent. “You have two minutes. I want each in every one of you out here and ready. I don’t want you to return to your locker room in the next twelve hours”, the door was slammed shut again.

He smiled at the obvious shuddering breaths of those who were not Gotham blood. Unhooking his ID from his lanyard and clipping it to the metal clip on the waistband of his pants, next to his ebony pager. A new chapter has already started, and he is more than ready to begin it.


End file.
